Portable shelters are commonly used by the U.S. military and commercial contractors, such as aid and disaster relief agencies, and are occupiable for temporarily housing personnel, equipment, and/or supplies, or for providing services such as cooking, dining or medical care. Ideally, such shelters should be designed for storage in a compact configuration that can be easily transported to a new destination for assembly. Preferably, the assembly and disassembly process should be relatively quick and easy and require few hand tools.
For such uses and others, such shelters may be used in hot external environments. In that regard, some temporary shelters employ air conditioners to condition the interior space thereof. As known in the art, air conditioners are large users of power. Such power is usually generated by fuel-powered generators due to the portable nature of the shelters and the remote locations where these shelters find their primary use. Also known in the art, the fuel to operate the generators is quite expensive to purchase and/or transport in such remote locations.
Therefore, there is a need in the portable shelter industry to reduce the amount of power, and the associated expense, needed to cool the interior spaces of portable shelters in hot external environments.